Jackie's Week (17 page)

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. No counseling, no trial
separation, nothing. So I did, and she seemed content with that.
But six months ago, she told me she met somebody else and had me
served."

"Second question," Jackie said. "Why me? Why
haven’t you found somebody else? You’ve had two years to dig up
somebody whose not too picky."

"Over the past two years I’ve been in a fog,"
he said. "Most of that time I was still technically married. I
dated once or twice before I discovered that old fat guys don’t
date well. Then the divorce took awhile. She pretty much wound up
with everything. Truth is, I guess I had given up. Until our paths
crossed. I can’t explain it, but for some reason I feel drawn to
you. I’ve told myself a million times to forget it, but I can’t let
it go. Don’t ask me why."

"You pathetic old fart," she said.

"Jackie, are you crying?"

"Johnson, do you remember I said I brought
you a present? Come and get it."

He emerged from his clutter and noticed the
heads staring at him and her from the tops of the cubicles. "Okay
people. Stop the prairie dogging. Pop those little pin-heads of
yours back down in your cubbyholes. I’m sure you all have better
things to do."

A couple of wolf whistles and some other
appreciative comments were tossed their way from the floor.

"No," Jackie said. "Let them look. Here’s the
present I promised." She grabbed his face, went up on tiptoe and
pressed her lips to his. He started backwards in surprise, but she
held on. The kiss, when he returned it, was soft and welcoming,
like a flower opening in the rain after a long dry spell. The
whistles, applause and cheering which broke forth full force from
the floor excited Heinz, who popped out the door and began wagging
his bushy tail with abandon. Heinz resisted the temptation to bark.
He was, after all, a highly disciplined police officer.

"Johnson?"

"Yes?"

"We have a problem," she said.

"And that is?"

"That kiss was a test. I was hoping for a
spark, but I felt nothing. And yesterday, I felt something stirring
when I had a massage from a young woman. I’m all mixed up. I think
I am a lesbo."

"Jackie, don’t be in such a hurry. Maybe
you’re just not ready to feel anything for a guy yet. Another woman
is safer, somehow. I mean, you used to enjoy men, right?"

"I’m starting to wonder. I know I thought I
needed them. I had a couple of those so-called long term committed
relationships, but nobody married me. But now I think I’m starting
to hate men. Look at what Bout did to me. And my last boyfriend,
Al. He used me for four years and left me with nothing. Johnson, I
ask you. What the hell good are men?"

"No good whatsoever," he said.

"Well, you’re my only friend, besides my
immediate family," Jackie said. "So I guess that’s something."

"It’s a start," he said. "I could use a
friend like you. I’m not sure I have the energy to keep up with a
younger woman anyway. Besides, I practically need to wear a sling
to keep my enlarging prostate from dragging on the ground behind
me."

They both began, in spite of themselves, to
giggle.

"What’s in the bag?" Jackie said after she
had recovered.

"Guns and ammo and other assorted goodies,"
Johnson said. "You know. Things that kill people like Viktor
Bout."

They’d entered the limo and settled back on
the plush calfskin, Johnson having already cracked open a window
for Heinz.

"That’s going to look bizarre," Jackie said.
"The sight of a stretch Lincoln with a dog snout poking out of the
window."

"Heinz isn’t a dog."

"I know, I know—he’s a police officer."

"Retired. No more training sessions at 6 a.m.
No more building searches at 2 o’clock in the morning, no more
romps through the Hollywood Hills, no more biting weary, brush-cut
felons."

"I’m starving. Maybe because I haven’t hit
the vodka this morning. Can we have lunch before we go to the
range?"

"I know a Cupid’s on Victory where we can
grab a bite."

"Chili dogs in a limo?" Jackie said.

"It wouldn’t be the first time. This is L.A.,
after all, where stars name their children things like Suri and
Lourdes."

Chapter 28

Sitting beside Johnson in the Stretch
reminded Jackie of years gone by when she’d had occasion to ride
with brides and bridesmaids in their limos. A bittersweet pang
struck her as she realized she’d never had the big church wedding.
Was sitting next to Johnson, now, with his dog, as close as she was
going to get to that experience? Summoning her will, she did her
best to shut it out of her mind.

The chili dogs, fries and cokes were glommed
down greedily in the air-conditioned comfort of the stretch, which
continued its way west on Victory Boulevard before hanging a right
on Sepulveda and a left on Saticoy to it’s destination—a
medium-size concrete building with a single door between a pair of
blacked-out windows covered with iron bars.

"So much for understated ambiance," Jackie
said.

"It’s not the Beverly Hills Gun Club," he
admitted. "You can’t enjoy a double de-caf latte on the terrace
with a Playmate after machine gun practice."

"Funny you should mention the Gun Club.
Bienenfeld loaned the owner the startup capital for that Club back
in ‘81. He’s a charter member of the place."

"Bienenfeld gets around."

They disemlimo'd. "We’re gonna have Heinz
wait in the limo," he said.

"He doesn’t like the loud noise?"

"No, he’s used to that. But we don’t want
your driver to get lonely."

Inside the door was a shopping cart covered
with a tarp. Behind a sales counter crammed with chubby handguns
tagged like corpses under glass stood a skinny man talking to a
little old lady. The object of their discussion was a revolver so
big it was almost obscene.

"We call her Dirty Harriet," Johnson
whispered. "She’s a regular in here. She lives a block over on Lull
Street in an old place with about 50 cats. That’s her shopping
cart. She’s a cop’s widow who went crazy. Pity the poor idiot who
tries to take the cart from her."

"Hey, Johnson," the skinny man said. "It’s
all yours, there’s nobody back there."

Johnson grabbed a large target—the kind with
the picture of a bad guy aiming a gun—from a rack by the inner door
and led her through to the gallery, whereupon he unpacked the
contents of his bag onto the shooting bench facing the range.
Jackie took stock of these items which, in addition to a small
revolver and a box of ammunition, included a variety of
orange-handled tools, swabs, cloths, bottled and canned liquids,
not to mention two sets of ear protectors and two pairs of
yellow-lensed safety glasses.

"Put these on," he said.

Johnson clipped the bad-guy target on the
wire and pressed the button, sending it down range about five
feet.

"We’re not really going to practice our aim,"
he said. "Because if you have to kill anyone, he’s only going to be
that far away. Maybe even closer. And you’ll probably be shooting
him in the back as he turns to run." He held out the revolver. Its
tiny shape seemed to have been birthed only moments before by its
larger parent, the huge handgun she’d seen on the way in. "It’s a
classic detective special. Lightweight, easy to conceal, but
modified with combat grips so when you sweat in fear it won’t fall
out of your hand."

"It only holds five bullets. Is that
enough?"

"More than enough for a good belly gun. It’s
designed for that intimate moment when the bad guy is right on top
of you. It’s loaded with hollow points. Bullets which expand upon
impact and tear apart the inside of the body like a grenade."

"Ohhhh. Let’s stop a minute and go back
outside. I need to get some air. It’s hard to breathe in here."

"Then you’ll learn to use the gun without
breathing. Breathing’s over-rated. It spoils the aim."

"Please take me out of here."

"We’re not leaving. So tell whoever’s in
charge of your coping mechanism it’s time to stop moping and start
coping." He thrust the gun towards her. "Go ahead. Pick it up."

"I can’t."

"Pick it up," he said, his eyes cool as a
Great White’s, his Norwegian features decidedly warlike.

She picked it up.

"Okay, Jackie, you’ve got to my count of
three to point it at the target and pull the trigger and keep
pulling until it’s empty."

Their eyes locked. His stare was unblinking,
with no give to it, like a large bird of prey. Johnson was in his
element. Guns and death and hard stares were his daily meat.

"One," he said.

She pointed and fired with a loud bang and a
lot of smoke, pulling the trigger again and again.

"Wow," she said.

"He’s dead. Nice pattern. If you use two
hands, the gun won’t rise up like that. But you still got two in
the belly and two in the head. No telling where the last one
went."

"It doesn’t make a very big hole."

"In paper it doesn’t. But humans are like
balloons pressurized with blood. Had that been Bout, he’d be lying
on the ground with a huge red spray covering the walls and
ceiling."

"What a feeling."

"You felt the power to take a life. The first
time it’s unforgettable."

"Johnson, I have to tell you—this sort of
scared the you-know-what out of me."

He began to smile.

"No. You don’t understand. I’m not afraid of
the gun."

"Okay, I’ll bite—what are you afraid of?"

"I’m afraid of myself," Jackie said, staring
at the smoking hunk of warm metal clutched in her hand. "Because
you would not believe how fantastic that felt."

"That’s a special gun," he said. It belonged
to my old partner, Jack Visio. A long time ago, he loaned it to me,
and it saved my life one night in a bar on Lankershim. So Jack gave
it to me for keeps."

"This gun actually killed someone."

"Yes it did."

The door opened and Dirty Harriet walked
past, clutching the big revolver and a box of ammo.

"Nice shooting, dearie," she said.

Chapter 29

"You’re invited to a party," Jackie said. "On
Friday morning. We’re having it at Gelson’s."

"The crime scene?" Johnson said.

"It was my shrink’s idea."

"Bizarre. But okay. Yes. Friday morning it
is."

Johnson, Jackie and Heinz sat lounging in the
limo, double-parked outside Johnson’s office.

"When I saw Dr. Black today," Jackie said.
"She told me the reason I got so depressed after the attack is from
the guilt trip I laid on myself. She said I felt guilty because I
blamed myself for Viktor Bout’s attack, and if I ever want to be
happy, I have to see the assault for what it really is."

"A lot of crime victims take it personally.
It’s hard not to. Nice people feel responsible for their actions.
They believe what they get in life is based on who they are and
what they do. It’s the hardest thing in the world for a responsible
person to understand a criminal attack isn’t personal, that they
did nothing to cause it."

"That really slays me. Everybody tells me,
don’t take it personally. Well you know what I say? I say, Okay, I
want to be happy again, so I’ll stop blaming myself, and stop
feeling guilty about it happening—but I do take it personally. Very
personally."

"It’s a start," Johnson said. He reached for
the door to disembark the limo.

"Wait. Let’s talk here for a minute." She
opened the tiny fridge and pulled out a couple of Corona
long-neck’s, twisting off the caps with deft expertise. "I’m not
supposed to do this when I take my pills, but don’t you just love
the sound it makes when you first crack a cold beer? That little
shushing noise is like the opening of the door to heaven." She
handed one to Johnson. "And don’t give me any grief about how
you’re on duty."

"To duty."

They clinked bottles.

"I’ve made a decision," Jackie said. "I’m not
picking Bout out of the lineup."

"Jackie."

"I may as well explain. In the past few days,
I’ve discovered how complicated life really is. For the past six
months, I’ve done everything I can to hide from life. I wanted only
to be safe. I thought if I stayed inside my apartment, I would be.
But the only thing that came out of my desperate efforts to control
life is this." She held out her wrists, showing him the thin white
scars, some old, some fresher-appearing.

"We call those hesitation marks. They usually
appear beside the larger, final cuts. What stopped you?"

"I used to cut myself and chicken out. For
some reason, cutting myself helped me feel better for a few
minutes. But the day you called me about Bout, I was ready to do it
for real."

"Why didn’t you?"

"The phone rang. There I was, sitting in the
bathtub with a box cutter, trying to have my big moment, and having
to listen to your screeching on the message machine. Your call
saved my life."

"You made a mistake. You blamed yourself when
your life fell apart."

"That’s what Dr. Black said. She said I have
to work on my guilt or I am going to be destroyed by it."

"She sounds like she knows a thing or two,"
Johnson replied.

Jackie took a long slow chugalug on her
Corona. "Viktor Bout threatened me last night. He thinks he can
control me. My pills are supposed to help me sleep, but I stayed up
all night thinking about Bout, about who he is, what his life must
be like, what his hopes and dreams are. I came to the conclusion
that not everybody has a soul. Maybe everybody starts out with one,
but some people lose theirs. After they lose it, their only
happiness comes from taking somebody else’s. Last night I decided
Viktor Bout isn’t going to take my soul. This morning, before I
picked you up, I slept in a coffin."